Nigeria’s E-payment Transactions Hit N56.85tr

Latest report from the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), has shown that Nigeria’s electronic payment (e-payment) services, recorded transactions worth N56.85 trillion between January and end of September, 2018.

The report, made available to newsmen on Sunday, represented an increase of N16.4 trillion when compared to the N40.45 trillion recorded in the corresponding period of 2017.

According to the report, most of the electronic transactions were done through the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP), Point of Sale (PoS), Automated Transfer Machines (ATMs), Mobile Money, Electronic Bills Payment (E-Bills) and Web payments.

A breakdown of the report showed that ATM transactions grew from N4.61 trillion in 2017 to N4.76 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2018.

This was as the volume of transactions on ATMs during the review period grew from 560.86 million in 2017, to 650.06 million in 2018.

The report showed a rise of about N635 billion in the use of POS machines to carry out payments by Nigerians.

During the same period a total of 98.73 million transactions worth N975 billion were carried out using POS in 2017, while in 2018, the volume grew to 196.83 million, valued at N1.61 trillion.

Similarly, the volume of transactions carried out by Nigerians, using mobile money rose from N795.18 billion in 2017, to N1.22 trillion as at September, 2018.

Transactions that were conducted using the web payment channel, rose from N129.24 billion in 2017, to N183.07 billion in 2018.

However, the value of such transactions on e-bill payments, which allowed customers to pay utility bills such as power, cable and so on online, declined from N420.73 billion in 2017 to N370 billion in 2018.

Meanwhile a Financial analyst, Dr Patricia Auta, has said that the NIBSS report represented an increasing awareness in the use of technology by individuals and businesses in the country.

Auta urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to intensify efforts on cashless economy, especially in the states to further grow the electronic payment space.

She also advised banks to stay competitive and drive growth by providing innovative alternate payment channels to customers.

The Joint Tax Board (JTB) on Sunday, said it would be targeting to attain Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio of 15 to 20 per cent in 2019.

Mr Oseni Elamah, the Executive Secretary of the board, who disclosed this in an interview in Abuja, yesterday, explained that the board was committed to and working with State Board of Internal Revenue Service (SBIRS) in the 36 states and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to achieve the target.

He said that the board would consolidate on the IGR reforms being carried out by the JTB in ensuring a robust revenue generation for the country.

According to him, the board is planning more awareness creation this year in ensuring an increase in voluntary compliance by tax payers.

Meanwhile, the JTB scribe also disclosed that the board was working towards ensuring that some State Revenue Services are given the autonomy to operate without any interference from any quarter.

He stated that States Internally Generated Revenue (SIGR) reform had been initiated in collaboration with Nigeria Governors Forum to address some of the challenges confronting some SBIRS.

Elamah noted that the board would continue to engage governors of selected states experiencing constrains in optimising their revenue administration capacity.

He explained that the initiative was aimed at espousing the need to adopt and implement certain key initiatives to drive reforms in the revenue administration framework for growth and sustainability.

The secretary disclosed that the board had reached advanced stages in the consolidation of the taxpayers’ database in the country.

According to him, the initiatives are expected to expand the existing tax payers base which implies more potential tax payers in the respective tax nets of the various SBIRS.